Consumer Search Trends Show Increased Interest in Real Estate by Potential Home Buyers

In the midst of one of the most challenging housing markets in recent history, the October comScore Media Metrics report[1] shows visitors on Realtor.com® are spending more time and viewing more pages as they closely track the pulse of the real estate market. Realtor.com, the official website of the National Association of Realtors, is operated by Move, Inc.

“We’re encouraged to see continued increases in page views and the time our users invest on Realtor.com as they search for real estate,” says Realtor.com President, Errol Samuelson. “This trend confirms earlier findings from our recent survey indicating a pent up demand for real estate with markets like Stockton-Lodi, CA, Fort Myers-Cape Coral, FL, Las Vegas, NV and Detroit, MI experiencing the greatest year-over-year increases in searches by consumers.”

Based on historical comScore data, Realtor.com continues to be the most popular real estate website with engagement statistics unmatched by competitors in the category. Consumer traffic increased on the site by 31% year-over-year and by 35% month-to-month as more users visited Realtor.com than any other real estate site in October. Visitors viewed 14% more pages on Realtor.com compared to the same month last year. They spent 460% more minutes on the site compared to the closest competitor, for an 11% year-over-year increase in minutes, as time spent on the entire online real estate category declined by -8%.[1]

Lorna Borenstein, President of Move, Inc. adds, “In today’s market, consumers need trustworthy, timely and comprehensive information as they contemplate making a significant investment in real estate. To that end, we continue to develop real estate search tools and resources that deliver the right information at the right time.”

Borenstein points out that over the past year, the number of users saving a search or listing has doubled and registrations have increased by 50%. Also impressive, when visitors to the category leader were offered the opportunity to opt in to receive marketing offers and other communications, they now do so 10 times more often than they did a year ago.

In addition to gains in engagement on Realtor.com, Move.com achieved double digit month-over-month increases in unique users (+12%), visits (+21%) and minutes (+14%).[1]

“This success clearly extends our leadership position, confirming Move and our network of real estate websites are on track in the midst of an extremely challenging market. We expect to be well positioned to broaden our lead as the market rebounds,” Borenstein says.

Realtor.com Searches Surge in Key Markets

Based on consumer search trends, real estate search is picking up in the markets hit hardest by the recent economic conditions, indicating renewed consumer interest in these areas. Local markets with the greatest year-over-year increases in October searches on Realtor.com included Stockton-Lodi, CA (67.4%), Fort Myers-Cape Coral, FL (57%), Riverside-San Bernardino, CA (44.9%), Naples, FL (42.7%), Las Vegas, NV (40.7%), Miami, FL (35.4%) and Oakland, CA (30%). Click http://marketing.realtor.com/octobersearch/ for the full list.

In a survey conducted last month[2], more than two thirds of identified home buyers said they’ve held off buying a home because of the overall economic condition. However, approximately five percent of consumers said they plan to buy a home in the next 12 months, about three times the percentage that actually bought this year,[3] and another 17.7% plan to buy a home in one to five years from now. “While today’s challenging housing market has affected many, search activity on Realtor.com and findings from recent surveys tell us the desire for homeownership is alive and strong,” said Errol Samuelson, President of Realtor.com.

Realtor.com Offers Freshest Home Listing Information

To provide the most up-to-date listing information to Realtor.com visitors, Move is working closely with local multiple listing services (MLS) to update Realtor.com every 15 minutes with the newest homes-for-sale and home data updates. Currently, half of all the listings on the site are updated every 15 minutes. “No other site has so many listings updated as frequently. Combined with the full array of tools, resources and connections to local Realtors®, we’re confident consumers searching for properties on Realtor.com will be better prepared and more successful in finding the homes they want,” said Samuelson.

Additionally, Realtor.com is partnering to receive the most accurate, timely and detailed information about recently sold properties directly from MLS. There are now nine MLS’s, representing more than 150,000 members, providing sold data directly to Realtor.com. As a result, consumers can access actual sales prices for a growing list of key housing markets within 24 hours of a sale’s closing, review property details and photos, and find the transaction’s listing and buyer’s agents.

As a public company and category leader, Move, Inc. uses public, panel-based reporting services when stating traffic counts so they can be verified. Move supports the practice of public attribution of sources when quoting data from reports, polls, and surveys in order to offer the transparency and clarity real estate professionals and consumers need when searching for a trustworthy online source of information.